The power of one

When Rahul Gandhi, a fourth generation dynast, talked about bringing in democracy to the Indian Youth Congress (IYC), few took him seriously. After all that was an organisation where nominations instead of elections, and patronage not merit, were the norm. Yet in an era where change is the buzzwo

When Rahul Gandhi, a fourth generation dynast, talked about bringing in democracy to the Indian Youth Congress (IYC), few took him seriously. After all that was an organisation where nominations instead of elections, and patronage not merit, were the norm. Yet in an era where change is the buzzword, the 39-year-old scion took charge of the party's youth wings and turned them into laboratories for his experiments with democracy. It has taken him nearly three years to prove that he can be the change he talks about.

CAMPUSES ARE VITAL STOP OVERS IN RAHUL'S RECRUITMENT DRIVE

First he launched an aggressive and ambitious membership drive, reaching out to the young and restless with a simple message: "We have millions of Barack Obamas sitting here in India. It's a question of channelling them, moving them into the political system and giving them power." The power that Rahul was offering was an invitation to join the IYC and the National Students' Union of India, a chance to take part in what he calls an "open and transparent" election process. Earlier anyone who wanted to join the Youth Congress had to be sponsored by an existing member. Those who recruited 25 people became active members and eligible to contest the polls. But that was then. Now all it takes to be part of Rahul's team is an easily accessible online nomination form with no signature other than the candidate's.

A YOUTH CONGRESS RALLY IN KERALA

A relieved Rajeev Satav, the 37-year-old IYC chief, says, "The amount of time I save, because I don't have senior leaders calling me to promote someone, is amazing." Or as Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada eloquently puts it, "The era of the three Cs--chamchas, chaploos and chelas (networkers and hangers-on) is over." The playing field has suddenly been levelled. Moreover, with Rahul in charge, the organisation which had lapsed into lethargy and oblivion suddenly has both a purpose and a poster boy. It also holds the hottest ticket to the future.

Addressing a youth rally in Tamil Nadu recently, Rahul said, "We are going to develop the future leadership of the state in this organisation." This is his plan: to create a grooming ground that will develop the kind of leaders he wants for the future. This is a strategy that both his father Rajiv and uncle Sanjay believed in--using the youth wing to build their own team. Manmohan Singh's Cabinet today has as many as 12 alumni from the Sanjay-Rajiv era of the IYC, four of these being former IYC national presidents.

The building blocks are being put in place. Rahul is using the Youth Congress to cultivate new talents as electoral assets.

Rahul once told his team, "The youth came to the party in a big way in 1977 and 1980s, not so much in the 1990s." Both Sanjay and Rajiv had harnessed youth power successfully to implement the Congress' policies in the '70s and '80s. During the last general elections, Rahul ensured that 10 of his IYC candidates were given tickets. Eight of these won. The building blocks are slowly being put in place. The idea is to both identify and cultivate new talents as electoral assets.

Rahul has also realised that unlike the BJP or Left, the Congress lacked a cadre that was committed to the organisation. What it had instead were little factions owing allegiance to an individual simply because the system encouraged such patronage.

Punjab was the first state to hold elections last year. The joke within the Congress was that if Rahul succeeded in holding elections in the faction-ridden Punjab, he would succeed anywhere. Since then, Gujarat (7,50,000 members), Daman and Diu (6,274 members) and Puducherry (67,848 members) have held elections while the process is underway in Bihar, Rajasthan, Haryana and Tamil Nadu. "I'm not empowering the youth, the IYC is empowering them. I'm just a catalyst," he once said, adding with a smile, "I'm not even a member of the IYC."

Ironically, Punjab elections ended up electing another young dynast, Beant Singh's grandson Ravneet Singh Bittu. But the drive also recruited three-and-a-half lakh members as opposed to the earlier score of 30,000. "Yes Bittuji is related to an ex-chief minister. But what is the reality? If we have to run a democratic organisation, we cannot turn someone away just because he is son of some politician. Democracy is an idea and it will take time for it to run smoothly," explained Rahul. Moreover, Amarinder Raja Warring, the candidate who came second to Bittu by 500 votes was shifted to Delhi and made general secretary in charge of five states. "No one in my family is in politics. I would have never been noticed had they not held elections to the IYC," says Warring.

Catching them Young

Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi used the Youth Congress as a grooming ground for young leadership. Now Rahul wants to do the same.

SANJAY GANDHI

The organisation peaked during 1976 to 1981 under him. With its agitational and social programmes, it became the backbone of Indira's Congress, particularly during the Emergency. Cabinet ministers such as Ambika Soni, Kamal Nath and Ghulam Nabi Azad were part of Sanjay's brigade.

RAJIV GANDHI

After Sanjay's death, Rajiv took over the youth wing. As prime minister, he reduced the voting age to 18. He used the youth wing to counter V.P. Singh's Mandal agenda. Three current Union ministers--Mukul Wasnik, Anand Sharma and Gurudas Kamat--were national Youth Congress chiefs in his era.

RAHUL GANDHI

When Rahul took over as party general secretary in 2007, the youth wing was a bunch of brash, aimless, not-so-young men. In three years, he has changed all that. Elections have been held in five states and his deadline for the revamp is December 2010 when for the first time since 1971, the IYC will have an elected national president.

To ensure that the election process meets his manual, Rahul has hired the Foundation of Advanced Management of Elections (FAME), an organisation run by retired chief election commissioners. According to the MoU signed between them, the process will be completed by December 2010 with the election of the IYC chief. The last time an IYC chief was elected was in 1971. "When I met Rahul for the first time in 2008, I put two conditions before him. One was that criminals should not be allowed to enter. Second, the election should be transparent and all disputes be settled by FAME. He agreed," K.J. Rao, general secretary, FAME, told INDIA TODAY. The elected IYC chief of Daman and Diu Mukesh Patel was sacked when it was discovered that there were criminal charges pending against him. "The complaints are sent to us and we send our recommendations to Rahul. He takes swift action," says Rao.

This is also a way of reviving the party at the grassroots level, particularly in states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, where the Congress is non-existent. Rahul's recruitment drive in Tamil Nadu, that enlisted over two lakh members, had even the DMK chief K. Karunanidhi worried that the Congress may want to fight the next elections in the state without an alliance. That is, of course, Rahul's eventual plan. He has made no secret of the fact that he would like to see the party win without alliances that only weaken the Congress' own votebank. The Bihar launch was the grandest so far, perhaps because the state is due to go to polls end of this year.

On Swami Vivekananda's birth anniversary (a youth icon from another time) this January, the Delhi-Patna flight carried 16 young MPs, including Prasada, Sachin Pilot, Milind Deora, Deepender Hooda and Madhu Yaskhi. Each had been given a district in Bihar to launch the membership drive and they all carried the same simple message: the politics of patronage is over. "Earlier the nominations of the IYC chiefs at the district level was done by the state president who would nominate his friends and favourites, who were more loyal to the individuals rather than the organisation. Now it is done purely by elections," explains Yogesh Dixit, president of the IYC in Uttar Pradesh.

Well, there are still some glitches. In Tamil Nadu, two powerful leaders are fighting over control of the youth wing with G.K. Vasan, Union minister for shipping, and Karthik Chidambaram, son of Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram, playing camp politics. Yet as Rahul would argue, a process has been set in motion. "Rahul's main concern is to put systems in place that survive beyond him. He wants to make sure that yeh charkha jo shuroo kiya hai, aage bhi chale (he wants the wheel to keep spinning even after him)," says Satav, bestowing subliminal Gandhian grandeur on his young boss.

Nowhere is this classic 'before and after' story best showcased than the IYC headquarters in the Capital. Four years ago, it was a deserted and desolate building. The only sign of communication was a list of telephone numbers for the absentee office-bearers flapping lazily under a slow-moving fan. Today the office is abuzz with activity. There is an attendance register at the reception. The president's office is full of young men in checked shirts and kolhapuris talking earnestly about PPTs (power point presentations) and SHGs (self-help groups). In the age of Rahul, if to be young is to be politically correct, then to join the IYC is to be politically empowered.